The Government of India has taken all possible steps to maintain adequate availability of fertilizers in the country and overall availability of urea and other decontrolled fertilizers in the States has been satisfactory. The Minister for Chemicals, Fertilizers and Steel, Shri Ram Vilas Paswan said this here yesterday evening while addressing the Members of the Parliamentary Consultative Committee attached to his Ministry. The Minister clarified that the country has enough stock of fertilizers for current Rabi Season. He said that in the case of fertilizers other than urea, which are decontrolled, no allocation is made by the Central Government. The demand and supply of decontrolled fertilizers are decided by the market forces. The Department of Fertilizes is responsible for ensuring adequate availability of major fertilizers namely: Urea, DAP and MOP at the national level. The States are required to tie up with different suppliers well in time and ensure availability at the State level and within the State. The supply and availability of decontrolled fertilizers within the States are coordinated by the concerned State Governments directly through the suppliers, the Minister pointed out. He further stated that at present 50% of urea is under distribution control and as such the Department of Fertilizers allocates the required quantities to different States under Essential Commodities Act (ECA). However, the distribution of all fertilizers within the State is coordinated by the respective State Governments. Therefore, ensuring adequate availability of fertilizers to different Districts/areas within the State, is entirely the responsibility of the State, shri Paswan added.
Talking about requirement of urea for the current Rabi Season, he said that as against the projected requirement of 108.35 lakh MT, the expected availability may be about 115 lakh MT (production of about 100.5 lakh MT, opening stock of about 11 lakh MT and imports of about 3.5 lakh MT). The requirement of DAP for Rabi 2004-05 has been assessed at 39.39 lakh MT by the Department of Agriculture and Cooperation and the expected availability of DAP for the Season may be about 46 lakh MT (production of 31 lakh MT, opening stock of 12 lakh MT and imports of about 3.0 lakh MT). Similarly , the availability of MOP for the current Rabi Season is expected to exceed demand which has been assessed at 12.37 lakh MT.
(Release ID :5275)